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An UrbanDaddy Publication

12/04/2008

Dubious

For a little over four years, Dubai has grown in the public’s imagination as the Vegas of the middle east, where Islamic devoutness could forge a local truce with unrestrained capitalism and a flood of oil money could fund obscenely ambitious construction schemes. But now that the boom times are over, the idea of a luxury oasis is seeming a lot shakier.

The Telegraph recently devoted 1500 words to cataloguing Dubai’s troubles, but the gist is familiar enough: lots of construction debt, less money than they thought, and a dwindling supply of optimism. The buildings are still going up, but no one is sure how they’ll pay for it all…at least until oil prices go back up.